Facebook has actually determined 2 different impact projects on its platform, one coming from Iran and the other in Russia.
The social media network stated Tuesday it removed 652 “inauthentic” pages, groups and accounts that belonged to a collaborated project originating fromIran The effort targeted individuals in the Middle East, Latin America, UK and United States, Facebook stated. The project fixated a network called the Liberty Front Press, which declared to be an independent Iranian media company however was in fact associated with Iranian state media.
“These were networks of accounts that were misleading people about who they were and what they were doing,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated in a teleconference. “Authenticity matters and people need to be able to trust the connections they make on Facebook.”
Cybersecurity company FireEye, which tipped off Facebook to the presence of the projects in July, stated in a preliminary analysis that the activity seems created to “promote Iranian political interests, including anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes, as well as to promote support for specific U.S. policies favorable to Iran.” FireEye’s analysis included that the effort consisted of “significant” anti-Donald Trump messages.
“However, it is important to note that the activity does not appear to have been specifically designed to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, as it extends well beyond U.S. audiences and U.S. politics,” FireEye stated.
In an obviously associated relocation, Twitter stated Tuesday it had actually suspended 284 represent participating in collaborated adjustment. “Based on our existing analysis, it appears many of these accounts originated from Iran,” Twitter stated in atweet
The examinations and page removals highlight the international and advanced scale of the difficulties social networks business deal with in avoiding disinformation projects from growing on their networks.
“Security is not something that you ever fully solve,” Zuckerberg stated. “Our adversaries are sophisticated and well-funded, but the shift we have made from reactive to proactive detection is a big change and is going to make Facebook safer over time.”
Some accounts in the network were developed as far back as 2013, and usually concentrated on concerns in the Middle East and Latin America, along with in the UK and United States, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher stated. But their focus just recently moved.
“Beginning in 2017, they increased their focus on the UK and US,” Gleicher composed in an article.
The project originating from Russia was unassociated to Iran however had links to that nation’s intelligence neighborhood, Facebook stated, and concentrated on concerns including Syria andUkraine Facebook stated there was no proof those accounts targeted the United States election procedure.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin rejected that its intelligence service had anything to do with the project and compared its allegations to comparable ones that Microsoft made Monday, according to Reuters.
“They are all trying to outdo one another with their statements which all look like carbon copies of one another,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov informed press reporters. “There is no supporting explanation and we do not understand on what they are based.”
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The announcement comes after Facebook said in July it had taken down 32 accounts, groups and events it said were part of another influence campaign. Facebook faced intense scrutiny for its platform’s role in spreading divisive and false news stories in the lead up to the 2016 US presidential election, with lawmakers questioning lawyers from Facebook, Twitter and Google about what they saw happening during the elections and what they did about it. Zuckerberg apologized for the company’s failure to take the problem seriously enough.
Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia and the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the revelations Tuesday were further evidence that foreign adversaries were will using social media to sow seeds of political discontent in the US.
“I’ve been saying for months that there’s no way the problem of social media manipulation is limited to a single troll farm in St. Petersburg, and that fact is now beyond a doubt,” Warner said in a statement. “We also learned today that the Iranians are now following the Kremlin’s playbook from 2016. While I’m encouraged to see Facebook taking steps to rid their platforms of these bad actors, there’s clearly more work to be done. I look forward to questioning the leadership of Facebook, Twitter, and Google about this at the Intelligence Committee’s hearing on September 5th.”
First published on Aug. 21 at 5:00 p.m. PT.
Update, Aug. 22 at 5:10 a.m. PT: Adds Russia’s response.
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